Snow
by mad-cow-mama
Summary: George and Warren have some downtime after the election.


Snow blanketed the apocalypse. Like always, like forever, no matter what walked or shambled across the earth, occasionally, snow fell and lay, like George's white T-shirt, clean, smooth, across the terrain.

Warren watched the rise and fall of George's chest as she slept, covered by the blanket. That white T-shirt had never retained the slightest smudge, no matter what George had done, no matter how many fights, or kills. Not until the horror of Pandora.

Roberta remembered a couple on her squad like that. They could dig a latrine wearing white and come out pristine. But Rick and Mitch got sick in a previous plague and were buried in white years earlier. Those suits were probably still clean.

Warren had found George's shirt bloodied and torn in the burn barrel. She'd snagged it and soaked it and mended it on the sly, soaked it and rubbed it and even found a bit of hydrogen peroxide. It fizzed and bubbled, but still traces of blood remained. Maybe it was just as well. The black T-shirt suited George— exposing her collarbones and throat, as if to say, bring it, you won't get close— but that ill-fitting white jacket should have stayed in the costume closet at Pacifica. It reminded Warren of that album cover of her mother's: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

George took a deep breath and turned, her unmistakable profile stark against the pillow. Warren smiled to herself. George's pure personal strength led her not to a vision of individuals roughing out the new era on their own, but to strength through community. Or maybe it wasn't due to her personal strength at all. Maybe her strength had come out of teaming up with the people around her throughout the apocalypse thus far. Warren didn't know. Warren hardly knew her. It didn't matter. NewMerica stood.

NewMerica. Crazy name. Why not NewCanada? Never mind. Warren had never gotten used to the latitude. No matter what had happened on the surface of the earth, its axis remained tilted, and the summer days went on and on, and the winter nights went on and on, and twilight started mid-afternoon, the overall effect between September and May being darkness and grey.

Warren considered her own habitation of the grey area between human and not. She didn't require lithium, and she had maintained her humanity rather well, if she did say so herself. But what was she? And did she want to go back? Assuming Murphy maintained enough of his humanity to make it possible.

She shook herself. That could go on a back burner.

Her gaze drifted across the drifts outside and over to the drifts in the blanket. George, for all her strength, beauty, and style, for all her heart, preserved her modesty like nobody Warren had known, before or since the apocalypse. Warren had never seen her without both a shirt and bra. Granted, it made responding to midnight emergencies faster, but these days, Warren went without one or the other most nights. Sometimes, sometimes she just wished George could let loose a little. They had their intimacies, small, private moments, melting embraces, the warmth of sharing a bed. And kisses, sometimes, Roberta's hand on George's cheekbone, her jaw, her chin, her exquisite face, but it seemed better to let George initiate wherever further they might go.

"Warren," George murmured.

"What did I say about my name?"

" _Lieutenant_ Warren?"

" _Madam_ _President_?"

George opened her eyes. "Get over here, Roberta," she said.

"Very commanding," said Warren, raising an eyebrow, but sitting on the bed nonetheless.

George reached around her and pulled Roberta alongside herself. She snagged the blanket out from under her and spread it out on top. "Warm me up," said George, brushing aside Roberta's hair and laying her lips against her neck.

"Is this okay?"

"More than," said Roberta, turning to face George, "You know it is. More if you decide."

"I didn't go to Catholic school."

"Makes it easier for some." Roberta traced George's eyebrow. She kissed her nose. Up close like this, George's muscularity and posture and pride receded, or maybe it was just Roberta's eyesight, and the vestiges of that frightened freshman she'd first found emerged. Just George, vulnerable. George, open and warm.

George found Roberta's hand at her cheekbone, took it, kissed it, and, their eyes locked, slid it down the black T-shirt. At its bottom edge, she slipped Roberta's hand underneath and along her abs and ribs.

"You sure?"

"I'm braver with you." George tucked Roberta's hand under her bra. She guided her fingers up over her nipple. George's eyes closed involuntarily just as the breath flew out of her.

"Can I unhook it?"

George's eyes popped open. One corner of her mouth turned down. "It's a pullover."

"That's my girl," laughed Warren, pulling back a little. "Would you like some help with that?"

"I got it," said George. She sat up and crossed her arms over her front and pulled the T-shirt over her head, exposing that formidable bra.

Roberta tipped her head to the side, a smile forming slowly.

"This is awkward," said George.

"This is intimate. You've survived a lot. Take your time. Do you want me to look away?"

"No. I want you to see me."

The tiny voice coming from this powerful woman never ceased to delight Warren. Or Roberta.

George removed her bra. Roberta's eyes crinkled.

"Beautiful," Roberta breathed.

"It's just me."

"Yes, it is." Roberta's eyes flipped between George's eyes and breasts and lips. "Can I—"

"Yes, please."

Roberta Warren, Lieutenant of the National Guard of the former United States of America, cognizant of strategy and tactics, able to take out an enemy at distance with a rifle or up close hand-to-hand, commander and protector of women and men and talkers and— others, Roberta Warren, unique member of the undead citizens of NewMerica, beneficiary of unknowable costs and benefits of Murphy's blood and untold procedures of Zona, Roberta Warren— for once— hesitated.

She took George in.

She removed her own shirt, enjoying the squeak that erupted from George as she did. But when George reached for her, Roberta took her hands and trapped them above George's head.

"Hold up there, girl. I got you. Your job is just to be here."

By now George's breath had quickened and her face had flushed and rose-colored blushes rose to the surface of her skin all down her chest.

Roberta lay herself on George, foot to foot, thigh to thigh, breast to breast. Lip to lip.

"Warren, I'm—"

"Shhh." Roberta Lieutenant Warren's lips nipped at George's, Little kisses, sweet kisses, playful kisses, then deeper, slower kisses, as the LT's knee slid between George's thighs.

Noises slipped out of George, but she couldn't hear them. George's attention flew to each part of her body in contact with Warren. Her head filled with the sounds of blood coursing from one erogenous zone to the next, her rising heartbeat, her pounding response to Warren's knee.

"George? Sweet girl?" Roberta said between kisses, "I'm gonna move these." Her hands. "You're gonna stay there."

George nodded, trying to control her breathing. Warren moved her lips to George's throat and her palms to George's nipples.

Roberta "Lieut" Warren, aka "Lute" and sometimes "Loot" Warren, never Bobbie, never Roe, definitely never Ro-Ro, sometimes Bosmang, always in charge and yet second in command, stealthily made her way to her target, taking her time, throwing out half-baked ideas and just as quickly switching to plan B, setting up distractions and sending in probes, hovering, observing, and at George's go sign, exposing and drilling in, switching, doubling back, and penetrating deeper until George, disobeying, grabbed Roberta's head in both her hands and held her in position until relief came.

George laughed, her arms scooping up under Roberta's and lifting her next to her, their eyes full.

"Roberta…" she breathed, tracing Roberta's eyebrows and lips, her ears and jaw, tracing Roberta's clavicle and sternum with her thumb, and Roberta's breasts. "Roberta," she said again, smoothing her hand along Roberta's side from shoulder to hip. Sitting up, she continued along Roberta's leg to her foot and back up, along the inside this time.

Fast as a fighter, George had Roberta's knee over her shoulder. George smiled, her hand sliding to Roberta's shorts. "Roberta?" she asked, and Roberta laughed and started removing them. "Roberta," George admonished, taking over.

George, born Georgia, father and mother of her country, friend to the living and the dead, enemy of fascists and elitists, strong, stately, happy to use her fists but happier using her words, George St. Clair, the clear-eyed, saw deep into Roberta, and although Roberta did not bleed, George brought her to life, back to the living, the walking, the breathing, the singing, zinging, riding, screaming, sweating life Roberta hadn't realized she'd left.

Life. Human life. Messy, horrible, gorgeous human life.

Roberta Warren woke, her face adhered to George née Georgia St. Clair's breast.

"Hey," said George.

"Hey," said Warren.

"It's snowing."

"Mmm."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Do you wanna—"

Roberta lifted her head.

"—build a snowman?"

Roberta laughed. "Ugh, no. Snow's still cold in the apocalypse."

"Well… in that case, do you wanna— be my girlfriend?"


End file.
